"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit."
Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.

Saturday, 11 June 2005

Pete Steen (1935-1984): SteenFest

There are plans a foot to publish a popular fetschrisft for Pete Steen. Steen is the author of the now sadly out o print The Structure of Herman Dooyeweerd's Thought Wedge: Toronto, 1983. This was his doctoral dissertation presented to Westminster Theological Seminary.

Steen writes of his research:

“As I tried to bring real critique on Dooyeweerd’s conception of the supra-temporality of the heart, I found myself involved in the problems which needed far greater critical attention. I then went on to develop a series of studies on other various facets of Dooyeweerd’s system. For clarification and development…I was driven to consult other key members of this school, namely K.J. Popma, D.H. Th. Vollenhoven, and J.P.A Mekkes. The more I involved myself in these men, the more I realized, on the one hand, that these men shared some of my criticisms…and, on the other…how much I was in the grip of the nature-grace ground motive (to use Dooyeweerd’s way of stating it.) This gradual awareness…meant a change in my outlook…I became increasingly critical of myself in terms of Dooyeweerd and his school…At the same time the increasing importance of this school for Reformed theology became my burden. At that point, I was criticizing Reformed theology from the point of view of the school rather than vice-versa…”

“An important facet of the problems to be dealt with in this dissertation is that they are the same problems which are important in Reformed theology. The Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee has not been very successful in bringing its reformational thinking to bear on the Reformed theological community because to a great extent there remains a lack of clarity on certain point within the school itself. The double purpose of this dissertation then, is to bring clarity to these problems in Dooyeweerd, and at the same time, point out some new directions for Reformed theology.” [from Ch. 1: Preliminary Considerations, inThe Idea of Religious Transcendence… Steen (1970) p.1-3.]

He is an important figure in the Reformational/ neo-calvinist movement.

There is a mailing list set up for all those interested here; and a brief bio and description of the 'SteenFest' available here